pattern drafting – a word is elegy to what it signifies

Using Slopers: Full Abdomen Adjustments

January 2, 2020January 2, 2020 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

WHAT IS A FULL ABDOMEN ADJUSTMENT?

Ever struggled with getting patterns to fit a fuller abdomen/thicker waistline than patterns usually are drafted for? The full abdomen pattern adjustment (or, in my case, postpartum tummy adjustment!) adds more fabric to your pattern to cover the stomach area more comfortably. It adds volume for smoother fit to the body’s contours and more comfort.

I always have struggled with waistlines and the front abdominal area, and since my second pregnancy, my mommy tummy is more pronounced than it used to be. I really struggle with ready to wear sizing for the same reason – they just aren’t made for my body type, which is more like this (on my shiny new fancy croquis I painted!):

pronounced curvature of abdomen at high hip

fabric is pulled forward by full abdomen, shifting side seams forward and causing drag lines

My body proportions lack waistline definition but also have a somewhat narrow hip structure, which causes a few special fitting issues that might be familiar to anyone with a full tummy area:

-waistbands dig in or won’t close if pants or skirts fit at the hip
-the belly pushes the front of clothing downward to settle below the belly, where it cuts in and exaggerates the curve of the belly in an unflattering way
-waistbands ride up or fall down if the garment fits at the waist because the lower body doesn’t fill out and provide resistance against the fabric at the high hip and full hip to help hold it in place.

To show this from the side view:

Hem may hang unevenly from being pulled up to cover full abdomen.

If you have similar fitting issues when sewing and/or discomfort in ready to wear, you might find that a full abdomen adjustment really helps. What follows is what works for me, and is kind of a Frankenstein method using bits and pieces from all the tutorials I’ve tried. So far, this combination of approaches has been the most successful for me and I’ll be doing a future blog to document how I apply it to a pants sloper, too. I claim no expertise on fitting, but am sharing this in the hope that it will help other sewists to get a better fit with less trial and error and less wasted sewing time and fabric.

So where to begin?

START WITH BODY MEASUREMENTS

At a minimum, you need your waist measurement (taken at the narrowest point of your torso, usually even with the elbow) and your low hip (sometimes called full hip) measurement, which measures your hips and buttocks at the fullest point. Usually the low hip is 8.5″ below the waist.

The usual approaches are to choose the pattern based on at least one of these measurements, adjusting to fit the other measurement if needed, but this doesn’t work as well with a full abdomen. Simply choosing a larger size adds to the front and back waistline evenly, which misaligns the side seam and loses waist shaping in back.

If you choose the size that fits your body at the waist and then reduce the pattern width to fit at the hips, you then lose the darted fit of the back pattern and will require adjustments there. Also with skirts this reduction at the hips strategy may work fine, but for pants it becomes more complicated. If you choose a size to fit the waist, then the proportions at the hip are going to be larger than your body. The leg proportions are probably smaller than those of the pattern, and then the complicated intersection of body segments happening at the crotch is going to be thrown off.

The other usual approach is to fit the body at hip, then slash and spread to expand at waist. While this works better, and fitting the bone structures (hip) and modifying to fit the soft tissue areas (the waist) is my preferred way to fit, this involves trial and error from the very start. I hate sewing more toiles/muslins than I have to.

The best approach, i think, is to measure the body in halves. Doing this allows you to analyze the distribution of mass on your figure more accurately, and to adjust only where needed.

One way to do this is to mark your side seam on the body on both sides, using something that won’t shift like tape or eyeliner pencil, and measure the back and front halves of the body separately. While the conventional pattern selection wisdom would have you choose the pattern based on your whole body measurement, but this approach to a full abdomen Then choose the size that fits each best, matching them at the the low hip and adjusting the side seam lengths to match. This preserves the fit of the back pattern and allows for more isolated adjustments where they are needed on the body.

With a full abdomen adjustment, there is another consideration when adapting the pattern to your measurements: the high hip (4-4.5″ below the waistline, approximately midway between your narrowest point at the waist and the low hip). This measurement can be fuller than the low hip, especially if you have narrow hips, as I do. For a sloper, which you want to fit closely to the body, it may seem desirable to match the body measurements exactly at the low hip to hug the body.

However, this is not flattering in actual garments unless the design is intended to emphasize the curvature of the lower stomach. For skirts and pants, it is usually far more flattering to skim over this curve rather than hugging it with fabric. so you’ll want to measure straight down from the low belly. Maria Denmark has a tutorial that illustrates how to do this beautifully (here).

Another trick to do this without a toile or slashing and spreading the pattern is to take measurements differently at the full hip. Hold a ruler vertically flat against the lower belly, to extend a smooth line down to the full hip area to show you where to measure. It adds a little extra ease at the front full hip to skim the body instead of hugging up into the curve.

CHOOSE TWO PATTERN SIZES TO FIT FRONT AND BACK SEPARATELY

To choose sizes will require measuring the flat pattern or some math to figure out which size best matches each half of the body. Skirt and pants have very little ease at the waist, since they rely on a tight fit here to anchor the garment in place. So you’ll be choosing the pattern pieces that come closest to your body measurements plus approximately 1/2″ of ease for movement. If you’re measuring a pattern piece, remember not to include seam allowances, omit the dart intake, and remember to double the measurement if you have to cut two of the piece. (For example, if your front pattern piece says cut two on the fold, measure the piece (leaving out the seam allowance and space inside the dart legs) and multiply it by two, then compare to your body measurement plus half the pattern ease.)

To give an example, here’s how pattern selection worked for me and my measurements (approx. 31″ waist, 39″ high hip, 37.5″ low hip):

My sloper pattern had half an inch of ease included and the side seam shifted 1/2” total toward the back. This seam shift isn’t terribly crucial, but is in theory the industry standard; if I were doing this again, I’d feel free to ignore it, but in this experiment, I was being as precise as I could.

So I chose the size equal to my back waist measurement minus the seam shift (-1/2”) plus half the pattern’s ease (+1/4”), so body measurement minus 1/4”. This worked out to be the 37.5” size, which matched up to the size I needed at the low hip in back as well. So my back proportions matched the standard pattern almost exactly.

In the front, though, my proportions are very different than the pattern proportions. My waist and high hip measurement aligns best to the 43″ size. The low hip doesn’t match up to my body measurement but is pretty close to my measurement taken with a ruler held straight down from my abdomen (as discussed above, wanting to skim rather than encase that curve).

full abdomen sloper adjustment unaltered skirt pieces — My unaltered pieces are a 37.5″ back and a 43″ front. (My sloper pattern is labeled using the low hip measurement instead of the imprecise numbering conventions of women’s clothing.)

ADJUSTING THE PATTERN

If this had been a typical pattern, the side seams of the front would be longer than the back. to fix this, i would align them at the low hip and trim away the excess from the top and bottom, also curving the waist slightly upward at the center if needed to give a little more vertical coverage over my belly.

To test the fit, I did a pin fitting first. I pinned the darts closed, pinned the side seams, slipped the garment on, then pinned the garment closed at what would be the zipper at the center back seam to simulate wearing it, so that if I need to adjust, I don’t have to seam rip and can adjust as I wear it.

By doing the math and measurements of body front and back separately first instead of slashing and spreading a muslin/toile version, I have a much better fit from the beginning with less work. the fit works perfectly at the waist and high hip. I have the close fit I want in back and my side seam hangs evenly at waist and high hip.

There is one further adjustment needed, though. since the front of my actual body is only wider than the back at the high hip. Since my back and front are the same size at the mid thigh or knee, the extra room isn’t needed there, and this extra space in the bottom of the skirt really throws off the hang and the side seams at the hem.

full abdomen sloper adjustment comparing front to back sizes align at hip and bottom edge — Align the pattern pieces along the center front and center back seams. Lay the back over the front. Starting at the low hip, taper the front pattern to be in proportion to the back pattern at the hemline.

To fix it, I laid the back pattern piece on the front, matching them up at the vertical line of center front/center back. At the low thigh/just above the knee I marked the width of the back piece. I want them to match here, approximately, remembering the slight seam shift adds 1/4” of width to each side of the front pattern piece. Then I use the pattern piece to redraw a smooth curve all the way up to the full hip of the front pattern.

full abdomen postpartum sewing pattern adjustment fix side seam — Blend the pattern to the smaller size at the hemline.

This isn’t perfect, because the grain line of the outer seam of the front is now more on the bias than the back, but this could be dealt with by cutting the front in two pieces and realigning the grain to the side seam for future garments.

Here are my final sloper pieces after all adjustments:

And that’s it! I hope this is helpful, and I’d love to hear your tips and tricks and experiences dealing with this fit issue. Please forgive my wrinkly fabric. It’s cotton, and though it was pressed prior to shooting these pictures, my kiddos Godzilla anything on the floor:

I’ll be posting lots more on fitting issues, body proportions, and sloper adjustments as part of a wardrobe overhaul project I’m undertaking as we launch headlong into a new decade. 🙂 Happy New Year! Hope your holiday season was joyous and that Santa brought you all the pretty fabric,

-Amanda

Woven and Knit Sloper Patterns for Women’s Skirts

July 19, 2019 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

women's woven skirt sloper pattern PDF download

women's stretch knit skirt sloper pattern PDF download

I have two new sloper patterns to share, a women’s skirt sloper for woven fabrics and a women’s skirt sloper for knits, both in 12 sizes. (Available through Etsy for instant download and in large format pdf for copy shop printing, too.) Drafted my first digital fashion flats and created a new logo, too! I’m *really* excited, because my efforts to work out all my sizing and grading standards consistently is starting to come together. From a pattern drafting standpoint, it’s important to me to develop a solid, consistent basis to draft from going forward, but also from a personal standpoint, I’m excited to be creating a full library of personalized slopers so that I can get the fit I want, consistently and easily. If I know exactly the baseline I need, I won’t have to sew muslins or toiles. So there will be more of these in the future, and more to come on how to use them, because although sewing is an excellent move for less waste and better consumption habits and putting quality over quantity, sewing muslins of everything is a waste of time and fabric that I hate, and probably lots of other sewers do, too.

So what is a sloper, generally speaking? A sloper is the basic starting point for pattern design, also known as a fitting shell. It’s a baseline with enough wearing ease to allow for movement and breathing, but no design ease and no details, and usually it doesn’t include seam allowances, since they complicate the process of altering the sloper.

Why use a sloper? Patterns almost never fit as is, because all patterns are drafted to fit an average set of measurements. Since there is so much variety in human body proportions, the designer has to choose an average to work from, in the hope that these body dimensions will be a good starting point for their customers. Unless your measurements match this set of baseline measurements, the pattern will need adjustment to better fit your body. Getting a great fit with a sloper allows you to do this process once and be able to replicate it again and again, rather than having to sew a test garment to fit each new pattern you sew.

The sloper is meant to be a two dimensional dress form. When you sew a sloper, the intent is to establish a great fit, and to then use this as a template to modify other garments. Since the sloper has no details and no design ease, it represents the minimum amount of fabric you require for a garment to comfortably cover your body and allow for movement. The sloper is the baseline, where the pattern contains design ease and detail to add style, structure, and movement to garments.

These slopers are drafted for a hip that’s 9” larger than the waist, which is the amount I settled on when I looked at ASTM sizing charts and studies of actual bodies. It’s a good starting place for a lot of people, though I have a more rectangularly proportioned figure, so I’ll have to add about 2-3” to the waist for a correct fit. When I made my size chart and grading rules, I looked at the somewhat idealized proportions some of the big pattern companies use and tried to use measurements that were based more on real bodies than their dress form proportions. My hope is that my sizing will fit more rectangular/apple shaped/pear shaped figures better, since statistically it seems to be more the norm than the hourglass in the real human population.

I have never been a big wearer of skirts for my own wardrobe, but between sweltering humid Missouri summer, being on a 50s/60s movie kick when baby wakes me up in the middle of the night and discovering the wonderful drama that is the tango skirt, I think I need to add some to my wardrobe. (Last night’s 3am insomnia feature was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. Made a boring old pencil skirt look downright savage.) I also wanted to draft them because the skirt is really the bottom half of so many full body patterns like robes and coats that I felt like I should expand my knowledge of that type of lower body garment to better draft the full body ones.

I’m thinking of posting some step by step photos of the process of sloper sewing, fitting, and then adjusting patterns with them, because examples of actually using a personal sloper aren’t all that easy to find. It’s also a good way to start on the capsule wardrobe I’ve been wanting to sew when I Marie Kondo declutter the rest of my clothes again. The transition from pregnant body to postpartum body has complicated it a bit, too, since my figure isn’t quite the same as it was before and everything is trending lower and squishier than it used to. So I’m resolving to sew for the body I have, discard anything that doesn’t fit or can’t be altered to fit, and then take in as needed in the future. Clothing that just sort of fits is such a big part of the clutter in my house it’s silly, especially for someone with sewing/fitting on the brain so much.

Lots of lingerie and other sewing and crafting stuff to share, but I’ll save it for another day. My personal life is a fog of sleep deprivation and coffee but also baby giggles and summer vacation with my big kiddo, too. Hope summer finds you well, too, Gentle Reader.

Adapting a Sloper to Your Measurements – The Maternity Sloper

September 7, 2018September 7, 2018 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

I thought it might be useful to share the process of adapting a sloper pattern to actual body measurements, and what more extreme sport version of this could I do than showing how I adjusted my usual sloper size to fit the ever shifting, radical transformations of the pregnant bod? Things have shifted, swollen, and rapidly expanded in ways that I have never drafted for before. These changes are specific to certain body parts, so simply sizing up till something fits wouldn’t give me anything that fits my actual skeletal structure. I have to bust out the scissors, tape, scrap paper, and all the best swear words I learned from my time in the restaurant industry for this transformation.

I’m starting with my high bust measurement, which pre-pregnancy was 36″. (With swelling and rib cage expansion as everything gets displaced upward, my current measurement is *slightly* larger, but I’m choosing to disregard the slight discrepancy since the bones of my neck, shoulders, and upper chest are still basically the same. These bony structures are the place that most garments will hang from, so I’m choosing to prioritize this over the softer fleshy areas that have slightly swollen (or vastly expanded) where adjustments are easier to make because fewer planes of the body are intersecting.

After printing and assembling the sloper, I’m using my Body Measurements for Sloper Comparison worksheet to record the sloper measurements and my own body measurements.

front-and-back-waist-length-measurement
First, I check the vertical positioning of my front waist length, back waist length, and bust position. For my size, the front waist length of the sloper (taken from the high point of the shoulder to the waistline) is approximately 16.25.” My body measurement from high point shoulder to the area previously known as my waistline is approximately 15″. Since this is imprecise at best given my current shape, and because I know I’ll need additional length in the bodice front to cover my baby bump, I’m choosing not to adjust the waist position.

For the back waist length, the sloper measurement is approximately 16.75″ and my body measurement is 17″, so I’m not going to make any adjustments here.

bust-position-sloper-measurement For the bust position, I measure the pattern from the high point shoulder to the bust point/apex/nipple, and the measurement is 9.5″. My actual body measurement is 10.5″, so for this area, I’m cutting the entire dart area out and shifting it 1″ lower and redrawing the side seam, and comparing to make sure the length still matches the back side seam length.

bust-position-sloper-adjustment

bust-position-sloper-adjustment-redrawn

vertical-adjustments-completed

Then I move on to the horizontal girth measurements, where things get really intense. The total waist circumference of my sloper is approximately 30.5″. My body measurement is about 41.5″ right now. The sloper measurement includes .5″ total ease at the waist for this size, so my total desired waist circumference in my adjusted sloper should include .5″ over my body measurement as well, so the total width of my personal sloper after adjustment should be 42″ total. The majority of that difference is in the front of my body, so when adjusting the sloper, most of the adjusting will be taking place in the front. From previous pattern work, though, I do know that my waist is proportionately larger than most patterns’ standard sizing, so for the sake of balanced distribution, I will add a bit to the back waist width as well.

The front waist measurement of the sloper is 16″, .25″ of which is ease, and my body measurement is 23.75″, which is 7.75″ of difference. If I add .25″ of ease, the total front adjustment I need is 8″. (I want to maintain at least about a half inch of wearing ease in my pattern, I want to be sure to add about a half inch over my total body measurement at the waist.)

24″ actual body and ease – 16″ sloper measurement = 8″ adjustment needed to full front bodice at the waist.

So I’ll be adding 8″ of extra width to the front waist, total. Since I’m working with the pattern piece that covers a quarter of the body, I’ll only be adding 4″ to the actual pattern piece. (All of these changes will be doubled in the actual fabric since this piece is cut out twice.)

For the pregnancy shape, the front waist darts are definitely not needed, (unless you’re going for something super fitted at the underbust, in which case you could shorten the dart to the length needed and end it higher, well above the waist). For my current purposes, I don’t need the dart at all. It’s 1″ wide at the waistline, so eliminating this dart adds 2″ of total width to the front bodice, or 1″ of the needed 4″ width in the quarter body pattern piece.

I still need to add 3″ to the quarter body front bodice piece, or 6″ to the full front bodice, at the waist. To determine where and how to add this extra width, I’m going to consider what amount I need for the back as well. The sloper measurement is 14.5″ in back, which is .25″ ease. My body measurement at the back waist is 17.75″. If I add .25″ to that body measurement for ease, the width I want the back waist to be is 18″. So for the back, the total adjustment I need is going to be:

18″ actual body and ease – 14.5″ sloper measurement = 3.5″ adjustment needed to full back bodice at the waist.

This means I’ll need 1.75″ added to the quarter body back pattern piece. The back dart is 1.25″ wide at the waist line, so one possibility would be to eliminate it, but I don’t want to do that and entirely lose the shaping it provides. Though my waist is wider than typical proportions, my back definitely does have curvature there that a dart allows the fabric to follow. I may narrow it slightly to add some width, but I’ll wait to see how much. Another possibility would be to slash and spread the pattern along something like a princess line hinged at the underarm area, but this is probably more complicated than what I need, and would involve changing the hip, too.

For the sake of simplicity and trying to add girth to the pattern in a way similar to the rectangular body shape I actually have, I’m going to reduce the waistline at the side seam by straightening it, making the same adjustment to the front bodice side seam, because those pieces must match in length and their alignment is crucial to the balance of the final pattern. This adjustment adds 1.25″ width to my quarter body pattern pieces in back and front. The remaining amount I need to add at the waist is .5″ to the quarter body back piece and 1.75″ to the quarter body front piece.

side-seam-adjustment

To finish the waist adjustment to the back, I’m going to narrow my back dart width by .5″, leaving me with a .75″ back dart for shaping. To finish the waist adjustment to the front, I’m going to add to the center front by essentially slashing and spreading along the line where the dart was to add space for the additional body volume here.
I want to slash and spread enough to make the waistline 1.75″ larger. (Interestingly, in historical patterns, the center front seam often was curved along this line. To me, this seems like a potentially more accurate two dimensional depiction of the actual body shape in the front of the torso, which is rarely flat, unless you’re very athletic and far more disciplined about food than I.) Another benefit to this pattern adjustment is that in the future, when/if/to whatever extent my body does return to normal, having a center front bodice seam will allow for easy repeat alterations, so my maternity wear isn’t necessarily going to be relegated to the back of the closet for the rest of time, but can shrink back down with me as needed.

all-waistline-adjustments

Next, I want to look at the high hip. The industry standard for this measurement is approximately 4″ below the waistline, with the full hip approximately 8″ below the waist, though of course this varies from person to person and between different figure types. I want to compare the high hip of the sloper (36″, .5″ of which is ease) to my high hip body measurement (39″), remembering to add .5″ of ease to my body measurement. I know from previous pattern work and from my belly bump that the entirety of this discrepancy is in the front of the pattern.

39.5″ actual body and ease – 36″ sloper measurement = 3.5″ adjustment needed to full front bodice at the high hip.

This will be 1.75″ needed in the quarter body front pattern piece. If I weren’t pregnant, I would probably slash and spread outward at the side seam to add the needed amount, but since the protrusion of my figure is along the center line, I’m going to add it to the center instead. Since I already slashed and spread at the waist to angle the sloper pattern outward and didn’t yet adjust the hip area, I can just measure this amount and alter the center front curvature to add or reduce as needed here. The amount that was already added at the hip by my previous waist adjustments works just fine here.

high-hip-adjusted

Then I want to look at the low hip measurement, which is approximately 8″ below the waist, give or take based on height and figure type. In my case, and in the case of any full abdomen to some extent, since the belly bump expands both vertically and horizontally, it will be a bit lower than this, especially in the center front. I’ll be adding extra length to the bottom center front to cover everything. The sloper measures 39.5″ here, with .5″ of that being ease. My body measurement is 41″ here. So I’ll add ease to the body measurement and then calculate to find my needed adjustment:

41.5″ actual body and ease – 39.5″ sloper measurement = 2″ adjustment needed to full front bodice.

So I only need to add 1″ horizontally to the quarter body front pattern piece at the low hip. My previous waist slash and spread adjustment angled the low hip line outward more than this, so I’m going to curve that line back in towards the original center front line a bit. I’m also going to add length here, too. My sloper measures vertically about 9.75″ from waistline to low hip, but my current body measurement is 12.75″ here. I’m going to add about 3″ vertically to cover this.

low-hip-and-full-abdomen-adjustment

And that’s it for the major adjustments for the pregnancy belly. I’ll have to add more to the center front as I continue to expand, but the principle is the same. This is by no means the definitive way or the only way to do this in the flat pattern. Most patterns I’ve seen for maternity tend to add extra room/ease at the side seams, which works too, but in a much more drapey way that feels a bit too much like a shower curtain to me. The shape here hugs the curve, much like the cup of a bra pattern curves to encase the shape, rather than just draping over it. The downside of a center front curve like this, though, is that if the curve is bigger than the actual body shape, there will be sagging and wrinkling like a sagging bra cup. But that center seam allows a lot of adjusting as needed to happen during fitting, and changes made there are more independent of the rest of the garment than altering at the side seam might be.

Tutorial on flat pattern adjustments for maternity by Blue Hours Atelier. Click through for more on how to adjust a bodice sloper for maternity.

I hope this was helpful, and I hope that my hormone addled brain didn’t make any blatantly obvious, embarrassing simple math errors. 🙂 There are some other adjustments I do to my own sloper for a forward shoulder and broad back that I’ll probably cover in a different post soon. Happy Friday!

Free Downloadable Sloper Patterns and a Website for Free Resources (!!!)

August 31, 2018August 31, 2018 Amanda Wynn8 Comments

woven-bodice-sloper-cup-size-variations

I’m super excited to say that I have FINALLY designed and fleshed out a website that I feel good about. And on this website, you will find the *free downloadable sloper patterns* that I have been working on for approximately a year and a half. Why so long? Let’s just say that there are a lot of opportunities for screwing up some seemingly minor thing in the process of choosing sizing, developing grade rules, drafting, applying said grade rules, and modifying for cup sizes, not realizing it for a very long time, and then having to go back and start completely over because one thing affects 37 other things! 🙂 Which is not to say that I can guarantee these are perfect, but I’ve learned so much in the process of creating them that it has been time well spent, and I hope they can be useful.

These are the starting point for my pattern line, and I’m making them available as a potential fitting aid for my future patterns for anyone that chooses to use them, but mostly as my way of trying to contribute something that I hope can be useful to the online sewing community. The online crafting/sewing crowd is so inspiring and generous with encouragement and help and tips and tricks that it’s been a huge part of making this craft what it has become for me. So thank you, friends!

I’ve put every single size in my range up on my website as separate pdf files, and there are B, C, and D cup size variations for each one. They can be used for determining sizes and fit for my (upcoming) patterns, or they can be used as a sort of two dimensional dress form for working out exactly the fit you need for any pattern, or they can be used as a base for your own pattern drafting. I have some resources like a finished measurement sheet, a body measurement worksheet printable, and a tutorial on measuring yourself and adapting the sloper to your measurements on my website here. Feel free to share them with anyone that might find them helpful!

A nested version of the pattern that includes all sizes is available on my Etsy shop here, if you’d prefer it for grading between sizes or your own drafting purposes.
WHAT IS A SLOPER?
A sloper is the basic starting point for pattern design. Also known as a fitting shell, it is a baseline with enough wearing ease to allow for movement and breathing, but no design ease and no details. (It isn’t quite the same as a moulage, which fits even tighter, like a second skin, and it isn’t the same thing as a block, which is a basic pattern for a specified style, with design ease included, that can then be elaborated with details.) Slopers don’t include seam allowances.

WHAT IS A SLOPER USED FOR?
Patterns almost never fit right out of the envelope. This isn’t a failure of the pattern. All patterns (except bespoke ones) are drafted to an average set of measurements that falls somewhere in the middle of the vast spectrum of human shapes and sizes and body types. Unless your body dimensions happen to be very close to that average set of measurements used in drafting, your pattern will need adjusting to better fit your body. A sloper or fitting shell can help you to work out and keep a physical record of those adjustments.

A sloper is like a two dimensional dress form. You can use a sloper as a basis for designing your own patterns, or you can use it as a fitting aid to adjust patterns to your body measurements and preferred fit. In adapting a sloper to your own measurements, you establish a known minimum requirement for garments to fit, and you can establish the fit adjustments that you know you need to apply to every garment, instead of figuring them out anew for each pattern. The sloper provides a baseline for fit, where the pattern uses additional design ease, design lines, and detailing to give style, structure and movement to garments.

I wanted to draft my own set of slopers as a starting point for a few reasons. First, I wanted to start from a more realistic shape than the body model commercial companies usually assume. The industry standard body model is usually hourglass shaped, though statistically, most women do not have this shape. I wanted to use as a starting point a somewhat fuller waist and hip measurement than the Big 4 for a more rectangular body type, which statistically is more common, at least in certain European population samples. In developing grade rules, I tried to incorporate statistical measures of actual bodies rather than dress form increments or standard grades for tricky areas like shoulder length. My hope is that this will yield a better, more realistic fit, but the downside is that finding the right one for you will probably require taking your measurements and may not translate directly from what you’re used to using in a pattern from one of the Big 4 companies.

I also wanted to draft my own slopers to start with a very fitted baseline, and going forward, I want to offer patterns that are very clear about the amount of ease they include. Mostly this is because one of my recurring struggles in sewing from commercial patterns, especially trying to sew a historical range from late 19th century to 30s and 50s patterns to contemporary ones, is that the amounts of ease change so much over time and between manufacturers that it’s hard to know how something will fit without making a muslin of everything. And making muslins isn’t the best use of fabric and to me is the. most. boring. thing. ever. Personally, I prefer patterns that don’t include a ton of ease, and patterns from the Big 4 almost always have too much for my liking. So in my future drafts, I expect to use ease standards closer to the lower end of the industry standard range, and I intend to be super clear about that ease so that sewers know what to expect without having to try it and see quite so much.

demeter-nursing-bralette-burgundy-lace-gothic-lingerie

In other news, I added my first underwired and nursing bras to my etsy shop, because holy manic nesting impulses channeled into my creative pursuits instead of my godforsaken hoarder house, Batman! Pregnancy makes me feel like a crazy woman, but throwing myself into work is extremely therapeutic right now.

Coming soon to the blog: how to adapt a sloper for maternity, in which yours truly shall snarkily narrate an exploration of the changes pregnancy has wrought upon this physical form and how I deal with them in the flat pattern format. It will also serve as an extreme example of how to adapt a sloper to your body measurements. 🙂

Have you used slopers in your sewing? Have very strong opinions on the amount of ease one way or the other included in commercial patterns? I’d love to hear your experiences! 🙂

excuse me while I talk about my underwear.

April 2, 2017April 4, 2017 Amanda Wynn3 Comments

I’ve been sewing a lot of lingerie lately. My life is kind of a series of small possessions–I play host to a revolving door of obsessive interests, immersing in one after another, always centered on an axis of making *something* with a nostalgic eye cast backward in history. My hoarding of pattern catalogs and sewing ephemera *may* be giving way to hoarding of lingerie materials, which in my mind, marks some kind of progress because it’s more about the action of the crafting and the enjoyment of the moment while creating the thing than it is about possession of a thing. We’ll see.

I’m trying to move more into making than owning, more about enjoyment of the process than collecting (but I still love you, bookshelf!). I find trying to sew beautiful things to be a therapeutic exertion of will over a sometimes ugly reality. Politics has me hand-wringing? Grab my lace. Worried about antartic ice sheets? Turn off a few more light bulbs and grab my lace. Focus on the lace. The Western world seems to be both far better than it has been in the last few millenia, in terms of civil rights, gay rights, the standing of women and children, literacy, information access, medicine. Yet in terms of scaled economic injustice and systems of exploitation of labor, climate change, pollution, the island of plastic in the pacific, mercury in and acidification and warming of the oceans, species extinctions, the disappearance of the middle class, the disappearance of privacy, the uncertain future of jobs in a time of automation, it is arguably worse and far more complex than I think most human brains are evolved to be able to grapple with. I don’t know any answers. But in an often ugly, screaming world, I am trying to quietly make what beauty I can. I make lace things. I make lunches. I make babies and make love and make breakfast magic out of 3oz of leftover steak, three eggs and last night’s soggy skinned baked potato. I make scribbles. I make crude jokes. I make my grandma laugh. (Since she watched Sons of Anarchy and Game of Thrones, there’s not much that phases her. <3) That’s often all I feel I have the efficacy in this world to do.

Anyway…I’ve sewn Cloth Habit’s wonderful Harriet pattern at least 10x since I bought it.

As it was, without modification, the cup placement was slightly narrow for my rather broad boob placement, as to be expected with any pattern I sew. Yet because my shape is shallow up top, the upper cup was sagging sad and empty, as most bras have for me forever. Not the fault of the pattern, just natural variation in human anatomy. (It is a peeve of mine when people complain about patterns not fitting their bodies precisely, especially when it comes to breast shape, when it would be so utterly and obviously impossible for any pattern maker to account for the bajillion types of bodies and mass distribution in existence.) So I tried tweaking the pieces by taking the C cup as a baseline / wireline / cup to cradle joining point and overlaying the B and A size pieces as guides to taper down to the projection of a B cup at the apex and the A cup at the top. Not sure if this was the most efficient way to do this. In fact, it surely wasn’t. But it gave me something that works. I’ve struggled for a few months with the relationship of the wire to the pattern and cup shape, but I think it’s starting to make more sense and really come together for me now. There are a few great blog entries on this topic on bramakingblog.com that were helpful for me.

After about 10 iterations, I wanted to try something else–specifically, something less pokey in the side boob. Since I need a wire for a bigger cup size than my actual projection, and I have wide boobs on a short torso, I often feel like the wires that fit me are way too long. Demi wires are a great answer to this problem, so I worked some more on a self drafted bra pattern with a different shape. I’ve been trying to up my technical game by working on enclosing all the seams in my bras (there’s a post on doing just that on the Watson pattern on the TailorMadeBlog that got me started on this). So I tried one attempt with a full band.

Then I reworked my pattern as a partial band bra for shallow demi wires and ended up with this.

Considering some minor tweaks and fabric variations for this. Happy Sunday!

Vintage Sewing Library: W. D. F. Vincent on Shirtmaking; early 1900s shirt miscellany

September 10, 2016 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

I’m having a mini-obsession at the moment, trying to learn to make a proper shirt. The boyfriend is in dire need of some new ones, so, armed with a Craftsy course by David Page Coffin on shirtmaking details, this book from late 1890s-early 1900s? by the W. D. F. Vincent, prolific editor of Tailor and Cutter, and a heavy dose of Boardwalk Empire = weekend filled!

Parenthetically, I should say that really, really love the David Page Coffin Craftsy courses. He has an interesting way of approaching his areas of interest, which I find relatable with my usual pattern of get obsessively interested + read a bajillion things tangentially related to subject –> try to synthesize firehose of information in way that makes sense and breaks subject down into components. Of course, I think my process is complicated by attention deficit/distractability issues (which is why I sewed a pair of pants and a cut-on Mandarin collar kimono experiment blouse a whim this week, instead of, oh, say, a SHIRT). But I really enjoy his way of breaking down the problem of shirt or trouser making into a core pattern and interchangeable detail elements, rather than being another dressmaking sew along this is how you do it from start to finish kind of course. This course doesn’t really cover how to construct or draft the bare bones shirt pattern itself, but that’s where the W. D. F. Vincent comes in.

Detachable collars are familiar enough to me from Peaky Blinders and the mini-obsession with them I had while binge-watching that show, but I wasn’t fully aware that the shirt fronts (or “detachable shirt bosoms”) were also detachable. Apparently these were made in detachable and even disposable form:

Apparently they were made in cardboard, paper and other materials for kinds of work like waiting tables, where it was easier to just trash the false front rather than launder one.

Then I vaguely remembered seeing the Bugs Bunny opera skit and suddenly the world became comprehensible:

When the singer’s layers start to unfurl, you see his detachable collar come off, his shirt front roll up, his suspenders holding everything in place. Apparently these detachable shirt fronts were typically held in place with buttons to the trouser front. Thank you, google patents! Also, fun fact, apparently they didn’t incorporate this into the elaborate, very accurate costuming for Downton Abbey and you can sometimes see these formal fronts bunching up on the actors where they would not have if buttoned properly. (citing my source) Apparently shirts of the era would have had a button there, where loops like this could fasten:

Patents reveal a variety of fronts and fastening configurations (I have a patent fetish, not gonna lie):

And the cherry on top–did I mention detachable collars in the Vincent book? Because this is sewing porn right here.

I think that’s about all the overcaffeinated tangents I’ve got. Happy weekend!

Vintage Sewing Library: 1930s-40s Draping

August 17, 2016December 21, 2016 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

I’m not sure if I have shared this link before or not, but I returned to it recently and thought I should share. These books were linked to on The Vintage Pattern Files blog, which is itself an incredibly generous resource for knitting and vintage fashion too. But the books themselves are great resources on draping, and one of them happens to be a Woman’s Institute booklet produced in the mid 30s. Evie of La Couturiere Dimanche scanned it and made it available on her blog (here). I love all things Woman’s Institute, and their materials from the 30s are especially hard to find. Yay for the internet!

There’s another by Mary Evans from 1935–Draping and Dress Design.

It goes into some depth on draping sleeves and shoulders and necklines, which are my current problem areas to get the fit just right. Also interesting historically, since there seems to be an erroneous contemporary idea that toiles or muslins weren’t really used, despite Mary Brooks Picken advocating them in notes in Fashion Service in the 20s and these draping guides. My suspicion is that wartime shortages made fabric more expensive during the 40s, or maybe people had less disposable income for muslin, or the make do and mend mentality changed sewing practices during that time, and maybe that stuck until our contemporary era. If anyone knows more about that, I’d love to hear it!

As far as my own projects go, I have two wearable muslins in progress at the moment–one is a blazer jacket that actually allows some movement and incorporates tailoring techniques (thank you Craftsy courses!) and another is my first decent self drafted corset. Both started as flat pattern attempts, went wrong multiple times, and gradually morphed via draping and chalking and cutting and cussing into something more like a workable pattern. I think draping is more my style than flat patterning, despite all my attempts to do it the hard way. Sigh.

Fitting Woes: Moulage Drafting

August 13, 2016August 13, 2016 Amanda Wynn2 Comments

Wow, it appears I have not posted in months. Sometimes I go full Luddite and stay offline for everything but work and listen to wordless cello music while I sew buttonholes by hand, because the pileup of current events has me too depressed about everything to subject myself to the bombardment of information about the all the terrible things…but then Craftsy drags me back.

So I just lost about 10 hours of my life to attempting to draft a moulage. Never again. I took Suzy Furrer’s class on Craftsy, after a lot of reading on the subject and a lot of optimism about this maybe being the thing that finally gets the right armhole/shoulder/neck fit that has eluded me for a few years now. Having just drafted my basic moulage, I can see that it’s clearly a f-ing disaster and it’s going to take either remeasuring measurements I’m 97% sure are accurate, having taken them a gazillion times for a gazillion different drafting attempts, or this process will require a holy fuckton of muslin making iterations that I’m not willing to do, having already been there and done that so many times and have a trial/error based sloper that works already. Let’s call this one a total FAIL.

The problem isn’t the class, really–Suzy Furrer does a fine job of teaching something that seems incredibly complicated to convey via distance learning. She’s thorough and as clear can be expected when neck deep in the hell of applied geometry using fractions. But I have a feeling that the industry standards, basically the formulas and rules behind the drafting, are not going to work for my proportions. As with virtually every set of out of the envelope patterns.

And it seems to be a bit more complicated than simply doing a “forward shoulder adjustment” seen all over the web (see: here for example) and on Kathleen Cheetham’s “Fitting the Neck and Shoulders” Craftsy course, which I have *also* taken and found abysmally lacking in anything new or revelatory that can help with my weird body shape. I like her body positive framing of the adjustments, but it’s mostly what I’ve seen in any number of books on basic pattern alteration already.

I have a) forward shoulders b) a broad back and somewhat wide shoulders and c) a large rib cage and d) relatively thick, short waistline. In fashion column what-to-wear parlance, I’d be an apple body or an inverted triangle. Comparing my trial and error slopers has been interesting, because my back bodice is almost two sizes larger than the front. My shoulders are not only forward, but have something of a concave curve in the front. I’ve noticed this on family, too, almost as if being broad backed without our front proportions being equal causes the shoulder angle to shift slightly to arrange this mass on the frame. It seems as if having a forward shoulder takes the straight horizontal line of the back and makes it into two planes moving in different directions, also rotating the shoulder blade slightly out. I think this changes patternmaking for close fitting garments in a way I have yet to see explained. See exhibit A from some random Tailor and Cutter board I can’t find now which had no citation for the original source anyway:

I think a lot of drafting assumes the figure alignment to the far right, while mine is basically the center one plus boobs and maybe a slight swayback. Le sigh.

There was a fantastic piece in Seamwork (here) talking about gender neutral or gender flexible fashion (a subject near and dear to my heart because some days I want to dress like a 18th century dandy and some days I want to be Scarlet O’hara and my taste ranges all over the place!) On the difference between menswear and womenswear:

“Fundamentally, womenswear and menswear are made for differently shaped bodies. Menswear proportions usually consist of more width in the shoulder, long legs, and a short torso. Womenswear is designed to accommodate someone who is the widest at the hip, and who has a shorter torso, a bust, and shorter arms.”

So, again, I’m wondering if simply adding bust definition to a sloper intended for male bodies wouldn’t be the easier way to get here. Full bust adjustment + waist darting on a menswear sloper? Maybe the usual seam shifting of most forward shoulder adjustments? The world may never know, because I’m irritated to the point of sewing knits for awhile.

Lol, just kidding. I’m actually working on a pair of stays with shoulder straps to work on my garbage posture because it’s probably easier than learning to draft for this sh*t.

Current Sewing Projects: Knit Blouses and Victorian Blazers, Oh My

February 20, 2016February 20, 2016 Amanda WynnLeave a comment

I want so many things on my sewing table. Impossible things. Impractical things.

Camiknickers.

Black tulle tutus and sunglasses and spring cool.

To draft the perfect catsuit.

But more than anything this week, I have been working on a Victorian style blazer. Something like this, but sleeker, more vampirey. This is a Burda jacket from the Hills are Alive or something about the sound of music, but my brain is taking it to a dark nuclear post-apocalyptic place. I loathe the running stitches and the pockets and the boxy fit, and I don’t like the position of the front bust darts either. So like this but not really like this at all except the high shoulder and the high-ish back neckline. *shrug* I also have been irritated in the past by the lack of seam allowance on Burda patterns, so I definitely won’t be buying this one. Just eyecandy. Also: do you think that’s really her hair, or is that a weave? It’s a serious hunk of hair there.

My partner hates poofey shoulders. So of course those have to happen. Because like Lady Gaga, I’m a free b***h, baby, and I LIKE a little old timey high sleeve cap if it doesn’t poof vertically. I’m thinking a single button closure in the front, a shawl collar, with a high back neck. I’ll probably give it a go in denim waste fabric for now, saving my red herringbone suiting for when I get the fit right.

I’ve actually had a good sewing week–I tried using a vest pattern to draft a bodice for a jacket, and used my 1880s sleeve from the recent tailored jacket attempt. The fit is nearly perfect, except for the shoulders. When I move my arms forward, it pulls on the front of my shoulder and on the back, along the edge of the scye near my scapula. All my reading of historical tailoring stuff has me wanting to try a new approach on my next attempt. They talk about getting armholes TIGHT, which seems to be sort of the opposite of the slash and spread suggestions I’m used to seeing and trying and failing miserably with. The idea, as I understand, is that the better the fit of the bodice, even–and maybe especially–in the armscye area, the more independent the sleeve movement will be from the more stationary bodice. Instead of lowering the armhole or adding more back ease and sacrificing the hard earned fit, I’m going to try adding more fabric to the bodice armhole, but not only in my usual vertical direction–I’m going to shift the side seam outward and slightly up. With my back being broad and somewhat rounded at the shoulder/scapula line, as well as slightly hunched forward, my back is taking up fabric from the sleeve and my shoulders/back extend in this weird diagonal way compared to the standard form. What I want to do is cover my entire back with the bodice, so that the ease in the sleeve isn’t used up by my back mass. If that makes sense. We’ll see!

I took my jacket attempt #1 and chalk lined it all up trying to figure out where to add. I even bought some hook and eye tape, since I haven’t gotten over my buttonhole aversion just yet. So drafting and cutting attempt 2 is my project for tonight!

Another thing to consider is sleeve pitch. Sleeve pitch, as I understand very roughly, is the sort of rotation of the sleeve in the scye. Most of the time the center top of the sleeve is aligned with the shoulder seam in the usual high position on top of the shoulder. But with stooped posture or forward shoulders or very erect postures, tailors *seem* from my reading to rotate the sleeve slightly within the scye to accomodate. This keeps the grainline in the right position relative to the arm. So with my shoulder being rotated forward maybe 10-15 degrees from standard (this would be set “high” in the tailoring parlance, I think), I might try rotating my sleeve forward to keep the hang correct. What I’m curious about in this case, though, is whether it matters at all that this might throw off the match up of underarm sleeves and side seams. Would one need to shift the underarm seam? In my case with the 1880s style two piece sleeve it doesn’t matter at all, though.

I’ve been branching out and sewing with knit fabrics quite a bit too. I resisted it for ages, seeing it as something like playing an electric guitar to sound good because your technique isn’t good enough to play acoustic. But the perfectionist in me loves the lack of fraying seam edges and the lazy instant gratification craver in me who has been sewing for three years with precious little wardrobe action to show for it ADORES the fact that I can sew up something quickly that forgives minor fitting issues. So far in the last two weeks I’ve made: two great fitting, exceedingly comfortable pairs of thongs (which I intend to make a pattern of to send out into the world soon!), a princess seamed scarf collared 1930s style blouse and another more Edwardian-ish high necked, poofy gathered sleeve blouse in a sleek, pretty ITY knit! Not gonna lie, I’m pretty stoked. That’s like a year’s worth of finished objects for me, and ALL self drafted. Someday, when I find a tripod, I’ll have to post pictures. It’s an incredible feeling to find that my spread-so-thin sewing attentions come together sometimes and actually produce something.

Also, the weather is BEAUTIFUL here. I love it.

Happy weekend!

Fitting Woes and Effin Slopers.

November 28, 2015 Amanda Wynn3 Comments

I’ve sewn three slopers in the last two days. The only explanations I had left were a) I’m deformed b) I’m deformed and a terrible measurer or c) I’m deformed, a terrible measurer and I suck at digital drafting.

Let me show you why I am deformed. This is my dad:

Don’t get me wrong, he was the best dad. He was funny and smart and so very, very kind. I miss him every single day, and credit him with what little patience and persistence I have. While my dad’s physique was quite the accomplishment, and while I am, of course, ever appreciative of the glorious blend of Arnold Schwarzenegger-isms and raw egg protein concoctions that comprised my childhood, THOSE BACK PROPORTIONS THOUGH. I inherited those lats, and I curse them every time I sew. (Alas I inherited neither his motivation to be super fit nor his abs, although I do okay–no sugar, healthy eating, etc. I just loathe any exercise that isn’t walking or dancing around my living room like Thom Yorke. Don’t do this barefoot; it’s a good way to break your foot. Ask me how I know this.) Also: my posture plagued my dad. He designed workouts to fix my forward shoulders, which back then I didn’t care about, being a stubborn kid who stooped mostly out of shyness. I still notice myself doing this when the social anxiety kicks in. The combination of broad man back I inherited from a long line of farmer strong brawler folk and my grunge era forward stoop means that fitting a bodice is a nightmare. NIGHTMARE. I also have pretty much no waistline and narrow hips, so that’s not fun when all my vintage patterns are drafted for someone who wore a girdle from age ten. I have been stubbornly fighting with the various pattern fitting possibilities since I began sewing. In the last few days, in a veritable paroxysm of determination, I have tried:

-a forward shoulder adjustment
-a round back adjustment
-a broad shoulder adjustment
-a sloped shoulder adjustment
-lowered armhole
-shoulder seam darts
-neck darts
-drafting a bodice block from my measurements using two different systems

It has been so incredibly frustrating. I can get a block to fit my torso, kind of, using these methods. But as soon as I add sleeves, my broad back renders any forward motion of my arms impossible. The fit is uncomfortable AF. So after the failure of attempt number 3, I broke out the duct tape dress form and tried draping again. I tried this in the past, but wasn’t very practiced, so my results weren’t the best and I sort of let it fall by the wayside. But this time, after all the math and all the frustration, it was easy as pie.

I was going about it all wrong. I’m not deformed; I just have a manbody. And I’m not even that bad at drafting, but all the formulas I was using were based on creating blocks for a much more stereotypically feminine form. The final blocks I came up via draping look way more like this:

than anything even vaguely resembling this:

and I wonder how many other women with petite, larger waisted, broad backed figures are also making themselves crazy trying to make the formulas work for them when (it would seem) the basic proportions involved are wrong from the start. From now on for myself it’s all man-blocks. I actually had already gone this route for a few pairs of pants, hellbent on not risking the cameltoe look. They work great, actually. And since most of what I want to sew channels Lilith from Frasier and the tailored suit look, blocks designed for men with a slight bust adjustment might be far less of a headache for me.

If anyone else has been through the gauntlet of these particular fitting issues and knows of any solutions, I would *love* to hear about it! I’m also very curious about the theoretical differences in drafting for men vs women. It seems like the tailor / couturier-dressmaker traditions were historically quite separate industries, which I don’t fully understand the reasons for and will have to read up on. But it seems like the basic methods of drafting should be universal, regardless of the figure? I’m also curious about how many people have fitting problems because of the standard male vs standard female figure used for drafting…